$100 laptop?

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

http://www.eweek.com/slideshow/0,1206,pg=0&s=26006&a=174980,00.asp

It's obvious that they haven't factored in the cost of support. One call could easily cost as much as the laptop.

You know what really pisses me off today?

[ranting-asshole.livejournal.com]

Part of my job is to create shipments for clients who have hardware troubles with their laptops. After they call us up, usually the replacement laptop will ship out the following day for overnight delivery, and the client then has three days to get the old laptop sent back to us, and then to call us with the tracking number. After the three days has elapsed, we send a reminder voicemail. After a further three days, we send a slightly less friendly reminder voicemail to both them and their district manager. Two days after that, we send it up to Field Technical Services who harasses the everliving shit out of them with threats to notify their regional manager and charge the regional budget for the replacement cost of the hardware.

Of course, the way this usually works is that they get the new laptop, get everything up and running, and then just conveniently forget that they have an old laptop to return. To alleviate this problem we've taken to shipping prepaid, preaddressed Fedex labels with the new laptop. All they have to do is get the new laptop out of the box, put the old one in and tape it back up, put on the label that we provided, and then drop it off in a FedEx drop box. Since it's already prepaid and preaddressed, they don't need to fill out an airbill or even talk to a clerk... just drop it in the drop box. This is usually either about six inches inside the front door, or in some cases even outside. In crowded metro areas like New York City, you can even find FedEx and UPS drop boxes on the sidewalk like mailboxes.

Despite this, we still have people who refuse to return their damned equipment in anything remotely resembling a timely fashion.

A personal favourite of mine is when we make all our followup calls, send the case up to Field Technical Services, and then a week later notice a note in the case indicating the client called back. "My bad! I got the replacement laptop and then was on vacation."

What. The. Fucking. Hell.

What is this bullshit? You needed a functional laptop so you could go on vacation with it?!

God this shit pisses me the hell off.

x-posted to ranting_asshole

Sigh.

[shifuimam.livejournal.com]

Dear residents,

What part of "the printer is not a photocopier" don't you understand? Next time, if you're going to print out 50 copies of the same damn thing, use the fucking photocopier.

Your loving lab consultant,

shifuimam